Is SharePoint ready to become an ECM platform?

The success and broad adoption of SharePoint has been discussed a lot. Being at the top of the food chain means that the competition is looking at you. In the case of SharePoint it means that specialized products are equipped with a link and an explanation why these products add value to SharePoint.

The story often follows the same pattern. SharePoint is a good product and is adopted broadly but it lacks this or that functionality. Well of course it lacks functionality. Microsoft is good at leaving out functionality and providing a good basis to build on top. That's why lot of organizations has been able to become big and successful by concentrating on the added value of their specialized product and services.

Sometimes the atmosphere of the story becomes even hostile. The product of Microsoft cannot meet the expectation and leads to frustration of the organization. The field of DM and ECM is famous in these discussions.

In the first place SharePoint does provide in a lot but not all of the technology and functionality needed in an ECM platform. Organizations are invited to add functionality and value to the platform. The ISV and IT integrator communities are core of the business model of Microsoft.
Second designing and implementing a successful ECM function in an organization is manly not dependent of technology. Just a little while ago all this functions were imbedded in the organization and supported with paper based systems. They worked very well for a long time. One should ask themself if it's worthwhile to change that. To what extend?

Extracted from a whitepaper the next quote:
IT has learned through hard experience that if the functionality in a new application is not sufficiently rich to provide a compelling end-user benefit, users will not adopt it, instead sticking with whatever method was used in the past. In this light, it is significant that organizations attempting to automate document-centric processes with SharePoint typically encounter several limitations which arise from specific architectural and technical requirements of the platform and the way it is often deployed.

Thru, the way a platform is deployed, given its capability's and limitations in the light of architectural, technical or functional requirements will eventually determine the Return.

The fact SharePoint is deployed and used by companies to replace a file system is not in the first place a lack of functionality of the platform. It is however the choice of the organization itself how to use the platform. The choice itself maybe poor due lack of knowledge. How to choose from the broad functionality of the platform? Maybe a lack of experience with ECM is the most important reason.

ECM is an expertise field with underestimated complexity. When a process and people centric business and a technology centric IT department try to solve the business issues and are not able to address ECM, they probably will stick with a file system replacement.

Implementing ECM successfully is not (only) about the technology and functionality of the platform it is more about the maturity of the organization.

If the organization is able to address the ECM issues prior to the design of a system based on whatever platform the return will be more predictable. It is not technology that solves that business challenge.